(CLICK HERE FOR CALTROUT CO-AUTHORED PAPER ON ISSUE AND DFW LED PAPER)
Expenditure of Prop 1
(Water Bond) Funds
Governor Brown has made it a priority to expedite the expenditure of the $7.5 billion in Water Bond funding passed by the voters last fall. CalTrout has provided comments on draft guidelines for funds that will be expended by the Wildlife Conservation Board and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, encouraging the continued use of the best available science and engagement with landowners as part of the grant process.
CA State Budget
Every year, CalTrout works to ensure funding through the state budget for aquatic species and habitat protection. This year, we are advocating for funding from the cap- and-trade auction proceeds to fund fisheries, wetlands, and watershed restoration. In April, CalTrout was awarded $922,000 from cap-and- trade dollars to develop a protocol for measuring net carbon sequestration from restoration of Eastern Sierra meadows.
Marijuana Legislation; Regulating Impacts to Streamflow
All indications are an initiative to legalize marijuana will go to the voters in the fall of 2016. CalTrout is working ahead of this initiative to guide water-management regulation of this booming agricultural sector. CalTrout’s interests on this issue stem from the enormous and well- documented impact the explosion of legal and illegal marijuana grows are having on California streams, especially during the last four years of drought. The impacts are most apparent on small north coast streams - the favored spawning and rearing grounds for Endangered Species Act-listed coho salmon.
Greenhouse Gas Cap-and-Trade Funds
California passed AB 32 in 2012 that established a cap-and-trade program as one strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Funds received from the cap-and-trade program are deposited into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) and used for a variety of programs.
In 2014, $25 million of the GGRF (from a FY 14 total of $832 million) was made available to the Department of Fish and Wildlife program. CalTrout is integrating carbon dynamics into our restoration projects to help California meet its emissions reduction goals and move toward an ecosystem service economy that values natural processes and resources. For example, CalTrout just received $922,000 for its Sierra meadows restoration project to quantify carbon and greenhouse gas sequestration in restored meadows. (See page 8.)